History of Coffee

2 Old Legendary Accounts

According to a legend, today's Oromo people's ancestors in a region of Kaffa in Ethiopia were the first to recognize the energizing effect of the coffee plant.

The story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered coffee when he noticed how excited his goats became after eating the beans from a coffee plant, did not appear in writing until 1671 and is probably apocryphal.

Historical Transmission

The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century in the accounts of Yamen. It was here in Arabia that the coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in the similar way to how it is prepared now. 

By the 16th century, coffee had reached the rest of the Middle East, Persia, Turkey and northern Africa. Coffee had spread to Italy by 1600 and then to the rest of Europe, Indonesia and America.

Through the efforts of the British East India Colony, coffee became popular in England as well. When coffee reached North America during the Colonial Period it was initially not as successful as it had been in Europe as alcoholic beverages remained more popular. During the Revolutionary War, the demand for coffee increased so much that dealers had to hoard their scarce supplies and raise prices dramatically; this was also due to the reduced availability of tea from British merchants.

Coffee has become a vital cash crop for many developing countries. Over one hundred million people in developing countries have become dependent on coffee as their primary source of income. It has become the primary export and backbone for African countries like Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Ethiopia, as well as many Central American countries

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A Coffee can from the first half of the 20th century

Below is a video to demonstrate the history of Coffee 

(Video credits to Explore Mode)